Farmo Bot
Technology plays a major role in modern life that affects all aspects of human activities. Robotics, sensors, and data analytics have made life much easier by converting tedious work to automated processes. This automation and involvement of robotics in almost every field has not only contributed to
2025-06-28 16:32:34 - Adil Khan
Farmo Bot
Project Area of Specialization Electrical/Electronic EngineeringProject SummaryTechnology plays a major role in modern life that affects all aspects of human activities. Robotics, sensors, and data analytics have made life much easier by converting tedious work to automated processes. This automation and involvement of robotics in almost every field has not only contributed towards the work efficiency but has also reduced the operating costs and lead time of many industrial and field processes. This report is about an agriculture-based prototype of a robot that we have designed. This designed robot can sow seeds and spray pesticides with better precision. It can also be used to monitor the crops and send an SMS to alert the farmer about the crops. This prototype has a simplified design which makes it easy to operate as it has a user-friendly interface between the farmer and the mechanism of this robot.
In the old days, there were no machinery and people must work manually on the farms which started to become tiring and sweaty as the field increases to plant the seeds. So, robots started to develop to help the farmers sow their seeds and harvest their crops. Fortunately, engineers have built several Robots that do the work for them but unluckily not every farmer can afford these. So, we are trying to build a prototype to achieve these goals and making it affordable for all the farmers to maximize the use of our robot to maintain and increase the crop efficiently.
Project ObjectivesThe population of the World is expected to reach nine billion people by 2050. Making and farming food to that much of a population will increase the pressure on production environments that are already in place, especially water and land. Also, it is more difficult now to find more expert and skilled employees and keep the cost of production low. To meet this impossible challenge, research, and development in the agricultural food-sector is very important. One step is to take one's approach towards modernization and automation of the agri-industry to increase the effectiveness of its operation, reducing the cost, improve and increase the food quality and safety.
Digital farming is the practice of modern technologies but there are challenges to making agriculture robots based on optimization and task planning algorithms. We are building a prototype to tackle these problems and make it environment friendly. The prototype is called “SEED SOWING AND PESTICIDE SPRAYING FARMOBOT (SSPSF)” is a solution to this problem which precisely sows large agricultural area which saves the extra cost resulting in more revenue and ease for the farmer. It also provides smart pesticide spraying as well as monitoring of the crop.
Project Implementation MethodThe initial design was started with an organized effort to achieve a stable and working farm robot. The first step was to conceptually design the robot setup to analyze whether it would be feasible for the application at hand. The project team organized their efforts by breaking down the project into small chunks of milestones and proposed a design that has a modular approach which is divided into various modules and app development. The purpose of this design is to ensure a smart, efficient, and user-friendly functioning of the robot to perform the required tasks.
The following list shows the order in which the milestones were achieved:
- Functional process and design diagrams
- App Development
- Robot physical parameters and configuration
- Modeling
- Simulation
The main module of our project is the seed sowing module. It is to sow seeds efficiently hence reducing the efforts of the farmer. This task has proceeded in a manner that as the crop type is selected by the user and the field coordinates are given as an input via the App designed, the robot is programmed in a way that it processes the inputs and starts to map the field. The robot will align itself in the best way for the field and sow the seeds one by one. On the occurrence of any problem or task completion, the robot will send an alert message or task completion notification, respectively.
Then our second main module is used for monitoring and spraying pesticides. The process starts by giving the input of crop type and number of rows. These inputs are further processed, and the robot starts monitoring the field. During the monitoring process, if any part of the field is detected as infected, the robot will immediately spray that part of the field. The moisture sensor attached to the module also allows it to measure the moisture content of the field. On completion of the task, the farmer is reported about the crop situation via SMS. Alert messages will also be sent to the farmer in case of any issues or pesticide spray unavailability.
Our GPS module is used to map the field into rows and columns. It is used to get the coordinates on the map. Tiny_GPS ++ Library is used for this purpose. This will then be giving us the two coordinates that are Latitude and Longitude. Haversine Formula and Spherical Law of Cosines were used to calculate the distance between two coordinates.
Benefits of the ProjectAs the world population increases, we need to satisfy food demand. That is why robotics automation is becoming exciting in the modern world, drawing new professionals and new companies. Robotics is developing rapidly, not only improving the capabilities of farmers but also advancing the automation technology.
Agricultural robots automate low, repetitive, and dull take for farmers, allowing them to focus more on improving overall production yield, which will be vital a the world's population increases.
As our project is to make a compact and affordable robot to automate the farming process for farmers, and also to develop the project further to improve its capabilities and functionalities. It has the ability:
- to sow seeds according to the pre-given data on fruits and vegetables
- to map the field into rows and columns by reading the latitude and longitude given by the user.
- to process and monitor the crops by using image processing technology.
- to automatically spray pesticide when needed by recognizing the health of the crop by image processing technology.
- to operate on high torque gear motors to easily drive on soil and hard to reach places.
The final prototype will be a two-track belt robot with additional and mobile support functionalities which include RFID badge, mobile App, algorithm, GPS module, GSM module, IR Sensor, and ultrasonic sensor.
Now we will break down how everything will work out on final deliverables technically. Firstly, a user has to scan its RFID badge on an RFID scanner attached to the robot to unlock its functions to the users. RFID is the wireless non-contact use of radio-frequency waves to transfer data. Tagging items with RFID tags allows users to automatically and uniquely identify and track assets and inventory. So by identifying the RFID Badge from a User, the robot will unlock and will wait for further commands from the User through the mobile application.
Secondly, the user will send four co-ordinates of its farm through the mobile app. After that, the app will prompt the user about which type of crop he wants to cultivate. Also, note that the communication between user and robot is through the Bluetooth module of the raspberry pie. After that, the robot will use a GPS module to calculate its coordinates to make partition and layout design of the given land. GPS is a system of 30+ navigation satellites circling Earth. GPS receives signals from at least four satellites then calculates its distance from the satellites to figure out its position. By using an algorithm it will map the field in its brain of how he will sow the seeds automatically. It will also use the dataset from the agriculture department of Pakistan about the crop.
Thirdly, the robot will sow the seed by using a seed sow mechanism. IR and ultrasonic sensors are used to align and freeze its functions when an obstacle appears. After that, the robot will monitor the crops and regularly check the health of the crop, and spray the pesticide when needed with the help of image processing technology. If anything happens it will alert the user by sending the user SMS with the help of the GSM module. A manual over-ride option is also available to the user if the user wants to operate the robot manually.
Final Deliverable of the Project Hardware SystemCore Industry AgricultureOther IndustriesCore Technology RoboticsOther TechnologiesSustainable Development Goals Good Health and Well-Being for People, Decent Work and Economic GrowthRequired Resources| Item Name | Type | No. of Units | Per Unit Cost (in Rs) | Total (in Rs) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total in (Rs) | 62756 | |||
| Raspberry Pi | Equipment | 1 | 10000 | 10000 |
| Memory Card | Equipment | 1 | 700 | 700 |
| Arduino Mega | Equipment | 1 | 1600 | 1600 |
| GSM Module | Equipment | 1 | 2500 | 2500 |
| GPS Module | Equipment | 1 | 1100 | 1100 |
| Motor Driver | Equipment | 3 | 350 | 1050 |
| Smart Robot Part Plastic Track + Driving Wheel + Bearing Wheel Accesso | Equipment | 4 | 1934 | 7736 |
| Servo motors and their mounts | Equipment | 3 | 1050 | 3150 |
| Water tank plus pump | Equipment | 1 | 1000 | 1000 |
| Battery 12v,7.5AH lido | Equipment | 1 | 2200 | 2200 |
| Battery charger | Equipment | 1 | 849 | 849 |
| HC-SR04 HC SR04 ULTRASONIC SENSOR | Equipment | 3 | 110 | 330 |
| IR INFRARED OBSTACLE AVOIDANCE SENSOR | Equipment | 3 | 80 | 240 |
| MFRC522 RC522 RFID CARD READER WRITER MODULE | Equipment | 1 | 250 | 250 |
| TOWERPRO SG90 SG 90 180 DEGREE SERVO MOTOR | Equipment | 1 | 220 | 220 |
| 12MM MICRO VIBRATION MOTOR MODULE | Equipment | 1 | 100 | 100 |
| Dc jack | Equipment | 2 | 18 | 36 |
| Pin connector cable pair | Equipment | 9 | 45 | 405 |
| XL4016 adjustable step down 8A | Equipment | 1 | 600 | 600 |
| Rocker switch 3 step | Equipment | 1 | 25 | 25 |
| Heat shrink sleeve 1m | Equipment | 3 | 20 | 60 |
| Fabrication of Chassis parts | Equipment | 1 | 2000 | 2000 |
| Chassis assembly holes and wheel holes | Equipment | 1 | 2500 | 2500 |
| Motor bolts | Equipment | 1 | 35 | 35 |
| Plastic box for electronics | Equipment | 1 | 50 | 50 |
| Under head bolts and their L key | Equipment | 1 | 120 | 120 |
| Seed sowing module Fabrication | Equipment | 1 | 6000 | 6000 |
| Pesticide spraying module Fabrication | Equipment | 1 | 5000 | 5000 |
| PI camera | Equipment | 1 | 2500 | 2500 |
| Custom duties, shipping, and transport | Miscellaneous | 1 | 9000 | 9000 |
| DC gear Motors | Equipment | 4 | 350 | 1400 |